The 5 BEST Writing Platforms that Pay Beginners

good afternoon my name is Julie Ray and I am a freelance blogger and content creator and this video is about five writing platforms that pay beginners to write I'm going to divide them up into three that are like kind of like social media platforms you post stuff and based on how many views you get you get paid and I'm also going to mention two writing platforms that pay that are more like writing boards where you accept jobs from clients in this video I'll break down each of the pros and cons how it all works I'll talk about how much money I've made if that's helpful Let's Just Jump Right In let's start with the platforms that pay by audience we're going to start with my my all-time favorite writing platform medium.com medium.com works like this it's kind of like if a social media platform like Twitter and a blogging platform like WordPress had a baby and um then every time you post it on that baby you got paid so the analogy breaks down a little bit but the great part is you post stuff um people on medium who don't follow you but are already on medium because it's a great platform we'll see your stuff and every time a paying media member reads one of your posts you earn a small portion of that membership fee so from the writer perspective you're basically trying to write stuff that's going to be popular well received well liked from the reader perspective you get two free stories a month to read and if you want to read more of the awesome content on medium you are invited to pay five dollars a month and not five dollars is where the writer money comes from the reason I love this platform is because there's no no ads it's all between the relationship between the writers and the readers you write great stuff you get read you get rewarded for creating engaging content and it's just like it's a fantastic platform so you get views and then at the end of the month as a writer you get paid through stripe I have made I've lost count um I'll do the math and I'll post the number here when I'm editing this video but definitely upwards of 50 000 potentially coming up to 100 a hundred thousand dollars writing on medium now I'm definitely in the upper percentile but I know a lot of people who have written on medium and started earning money pretty quickly so um I think it's a great platform for reference I typically see people getting paid around two cents per view or about twenty dollars per thousand views if you don't feel like doing the math at home let's talk about how to get started so to get started on medium all you have to do is sign up with your email creative profile and just start writing that's a really great thing about medium the bar is super low you can create a profile and publish your first story today to get paid is a little harder there is a boundary of 100 followers so you have to get 100 followers before you can start getting paid this can be it can take a while to get if you're really keen on growing quickly I really recommend engaging with the community leave thoughtful comments on other people's work follow other people who's writing you enjoy um post a lot in different Publications and really try to expand your reach that way I don't recommend doing follow for follow because if you're really that desperate for followers you're probably not going to be writing you're not going to be earning that much money anyway I find it better to naturally gain about 100 followers and go from there pros of medium as a writing platform you can write about whatever you want so this is the nice thing about audience paid writing um you can write about I've written about cats I've written about travel um I've seen other people write about fiction they've written about poetry they've written about self-help psychology feminism um anything under the sun there are so many readers on medium that you can find an audience for any topic and like I said it's easy to get started I've created a ton of tutorials on how to get started so definitely check out my channel if you want more info if you want to know if you really want a detailed step-by-step for how to get started on medium I really recommend signing up for my medium starter kit it is a free downloadable PDF it gives you a guide for what you should be doing on each of your first five days on medium and you also get a free email course that comes with that delivered right here inbox with every single step along the way cons of medium you do need 100 followers to start earning money and that can take some time to get so it's not like a get rich quick situation but none of these are going to be a garage quick situation um you and then again like the downside of being an audience paid platform is what other people want to read typically matters more than what you want to write if you want to earn money so you can write about anything and you can earn money writing about anything but you'll find that health wealth and love are the Evergreen topics that tend to perform best the third downside medium pays through stripe as I mentioned earlier stripe only partners with I think about 40 countries so if you're in the 150 countries in the world that are not partnered with stripe medium has no way of paying you which is a huge shame I think it's really unfortunate I hope both medium and stripe change their policy soon in the meantime if you're in one of those countries I recommend signing up and creating a profile and getting started anyway even if you can't get paid through the medium partner program I have still found freelance clients through medium using it as a portfolio I have found I've built my own audience there so I think it's still worth trying even if you can't get paid through the medium partner program purely as a portfolio website platform number two let's talk about simile simile is a really new interesting one so on simile um for context I've earned I think a dollar and 64 cents through similarly I'll include a screenshot here um but this is the really great thing about it it's for creative writing specifically so you know how I was saying on medium you typically don't earn money you don't earn as much money if you write about stuff um like creative writing um the audience just isn't there on medium for that they like tutorials they like more more think PC things um creative writing is not a huge earner similarly is the home for getting paid for creative writing and at the moment they're paying two cents per view similar to medium so if you get a thousand views on medium you get 20 and that's for you can write about like um you can post your fiction stuff there you can post your short stories creative non-fiction personal essays anything you want how does it work really similar to medium you join you create a profile you get started and I think you there's no no gate you can just publish your first post right out the gate and start earning money on views immediately the pros of simile it's it's like I said very very easy to get started very beginner friendly um it's also for creative writing there are not a lot of places to get paid for writing fiction on the internet and I think it's amazing that the creators of simile have decided that that's what they're that's the needs that they're going to sell they're going to fulfill writing for people who want to read creative writing I also really like that it's a it's a set amount of money it's two cents per view uh you know exactly how much you're gonna earn at the end of the month based on the number of views that you have it's very straightforward and I really appreciate that cons I have no idea how how stories get promoted to readers I have no idea how readers find my stories I don't know if it's chronological I don't know if there's an algorithm in there somewhere literally not a clue um they're not super upfront about that so you might get a lot of stories read you might not and I I don't exactly know how um you do need to hit a 10 minimum for the payout so that means you need to get at least 500 views before you earn any money and um the business model I think is temporary so they make a big point of saying like oh while we're getting started we definitely want to give writers you know two cents per view but they also make it pretty clear that they could change that at any point that's the pros and cons so if you're basically if you're a fiction writer and maybe if you already have like some people who might be interested in reading your post or you just want to test out an idea a fiction idea or a creative writing idea simile is definitely the place for that writing platform number three is vocal and then after this we're gonna go to the two job board ones Vogel is a weird one it's kind of like a mix between simile and medium it's not as creative writing friendly as simile but definitely more so than medium so the way it works is you create an account you start writing you publish stories and again you get paid on views I think vocal is more based on an ad Revenue so you're not getting paid from Members you're getting paid if anybody views your story that's they're a pros and cons to that I think the rate is six six dollars per 1000 views so a lot lower than medium and simile and that's only if you're part of the vocal plus program which costs ten dollars a month um if you're not part of that then the rate is even lower I think closer to like three or four dollars a month not amazing but they do have another way of getting paid and this is what makes vocal unique they host writing challenges so the way the challenges work they just post basically a prompt you write for the prompt they'll have a minimum Ward Chicago have some guidelines the prizes have been really high in the past I've seen people earn twenty thousand dollars for winning a vocal challenge so it's it's very real money Pro is a vocal super easy for beginners to join um there is a little bit more of a of a submission process so on vocal unlike medium and simile you do have to submit a story and then once vocal checks it for plagiarism they'll check it for um like to make sure it's not like a naughty story or anything like that um then they'll publish it so there's like sometimes a 10 to 12 hour delay between hitting submit and actually getting your story live it's also nice that there are other options to earn money Beyond just like views and you also again unlike medium you get paid for non-member views so on medium you only get paid for view if it's a paying medium member because it's a revenue share program on vocal because it's more ad sustained you get paid no matter who looks at your story you don't get paid very much so into the comments you don't get paid very much you get paid about a third per view um compared to simile and vocal sorry compared to simile and medium I also find I've heard feedback that the um the rubric for winning challenges can sometimes be confusing or sometimes there'll be winners who didn't adhere to the rubric who still won um I also don't love vocal plus as a concept I don't like the idea that you have to pay money in order to make money that seems uh just a little strange to me okay so those were three writing platforms that pay through audience the basic gist of all three you post something you get views you earn money all three of them do have a FL um a threshold so for vocal you have to hit 35 before you're allowed to pay out and for medium and similarly it's ten dollars however ultimately if you know your audience on there you can write and get an income through people reading your stuff which is pretty cool now let's talk about a different kind of writing platform that pays beginners The Humble job board so we're going to cover two foreign the first one I want to talk about is one called scripted I recently applied to scripted and I'm really excited to talk about it with you so with scripted it's it's simple it works the same as any job board you have to apply to scripted scripted will look at your application and say yeah okay we'll let you join our pool of writers or no we're not gonna let you join our pool of writers once you're in you'll then have access to a selection of jobs that clients upload from their end let's break down each of those steps so first you have to apply and be accepted at scripted scripted says that they only let five percent of applicants in roughly um so one in every 20 people is the acceptance rate uh there's no good way to say this I took the test and I thought it was really easy and I'm not like I'm not a Flawless writer by any means but I found it was a lot of like really grammar like there there it's it's stuff like that um 15 questions of really grammar heavy stuff I thought about posting the answer key on this video and I decided not to because I think if you genuinely can't pass the test then it's likely that you're not going to be riding at a high enough rate um a high enough quality to make their clients happy and they'll probably boot you off the platform anyway so I recommend taking the test really take your time um feel free to Google stuff during the test that's what I did and I did get some answers that way and they also upload resources to help you just ace that test so take your time do some research and fingers crossed once you get accepted they prompt you to fill out your portfolio I recommend doing this as thoroughly as possible because this is how you get assigned to jobs so they'll ask you to upload some writing samples they'll ask you to talk a little bit about you know know what you write about if you don't yet have a portfolio I recommend writing not a lot maybe like two or three articles that are geared to industries that you think you'd like to write for like healthcare or pets or Finance anything like that and upload them to a place like medium which works as a as a free portfolio once you filled out your profile you will then have three ways to earn money on this writing platform way number one smart match job invites the way this works is the client will upload a brief to scripted and scripted will say Okay based on the portfolios that our writers have filled out we're going to send this out to those writers based on like a smart match right let's I think it's done by AI probably that gets sent to your inbox it's sent to a small group of writers if you are the first one to reply to that email as if and you're the first one to hit accept you get the job the job is yours guaranteed if not you are out of luck and you have to be fast you have to be rapid I once waited two minutes um before hitting accept and I was too late I somebody else had beat me to it so um yeah just uh just jump in that one also the client sets the right so it tends to be a little lower but it is guaranteed method number two is a job invite so it's it's similar but a little different a client will say hey we want to write about this thing um who do you think is going to be a good fit scripted sends out that job invite to a group of like 10 or 20 writers we then have the option to send a proposal back to the back to the client and the client will look at the first five proposals and then they have two weeks to reply so it's very like it's a very hurry up and wait kind of situation afterwards they'll let you know if you get accepted um you do have a chance to set your own rate here along with your proposal and third it's just like a regular job board there will be jobs uploaded um to the site you can then make an application or like propose how you would handle certain pitches certain certain briefs that the clients have uploaded what I really like about scripted there's a floor clients can't pay less than like I think it's seven cents a word that is rare that is valuable that is incredible I love that seven cents still isn't a lot but compared to something like tax broker I mean come on you also have access to a lot of different work opportunities so uh clients thought all kinds of different sectors no matter what your interest is you're bound to find something you like and I like the fact that there are good clients I've seen clients on scripted that have been with the platform for like five years ten years so that to me speaks to the fact that scripted has a good relationship with writers and a good relationship with clients that's good that's valuable cons apparently it's hard to get accepted um again not to like brag or anything but um I if they're only accepting one in 20 writers that's tough that's a high bar I also find the timing can be a little whiplashy like you either have like 120 seconds to hit accept to a job but then once you apply to a job you then have to wait two weeks to hear back like come on um I wish they would put some more pressure on the client side to get us some faster answers you also will need to do for a lot of these jobs you'll need to do upfront work you'll need to like create a proposal for a client and there's not a there's a small chance you know or you'll create this proposal and there's a chance that you won't make money so you'll have to do work not necessarily get paid and you also need to have at least a couple of articles that can serve as a portfolio so in short scripted I think is a really good platform for beginners to start getting paid you don't need a wide portfolio you just need something that's targeted and I really like that that they seem to have a focus on making sure that writers get paid fairly which is fantastic text broker text broker this is this is not the first time I've reviewed text broker text Brokers video is is is option number five in my past video I kind of trashed text broker which I stand by um I thought that their website was super janky their application was not very clear for writers it was hard to understand and again not to brag but I only got a three-star rating and I think I'm kind of good um so the way it works is you oh yeah and their their pay is terrible their pay is in the gutter it was bad that all being said I got a lot of feedback on that video that was like look maybe for you Julie high and mighty in your Tower um you can accept higher rates but for beginners it's good to have a platform like text broker where you can just get your foot in the door hey just editing this video and found out that tax broker is not accepting new writer registrations until spring of 2023 I'm making this video in January so it might be a month or two before you're able to sign up just so you know so I'm coming back and I'm giving tax broker a fair review the way it works is similar to scripted so you have to apply once you apply you get a star rating one two three four or five the higher the star rating the higher paying jobs you qualify for on the client side they will upload once you've been accepted clients can upload job briefs to a job board and they can specify oh we want only five star writers or only four star or only three star as a three star writer I was only allowed to apply for three star or below jobs which hurt me and my soul so you can get paid three different ways on text broker you can accept jobs on the job board those are very simple you apply you don't even have to apply actually you accept the job you do the work you get paid very straightforward very simple these tend to be really short Snappy jobs very easy to do like a couple hundred words at most I think I earned 2.42 cents doing those so you can also apply to join a team so this means that you'll have a more a regular relationship with this client you're like hey I want to write for you car company because I think you're great please hire me and this means that they'll send you regular assignments more frequently than just like the one-off that you might get on the job board and if you're a really great writer or your portfolio is really well filled out you'll have the option to do a direct order so this is when the client says hey we want zulie to write this article for us the pay for those is as I've said so like the job board jobs at the lowest paid team orders medium direct orders highest the pros really having to think here you okay there are some pros to this right it is very very entry level um you don't have to write a whole blog post you can just write a little bit of copy a couple hundred words and you can get paid you don't necessarily have to upload like a portfolio you just have to pass this this grammar test and you don't have to like make a proposal you can just NAB a job and get paid right away cons this is a longer list the pay is a very it's like a genuinely insultingly low I consider it insulting how low the pay is on tax broker um and it's not just me I think if you're thinking about it you should be insulted too you are worth more than that than they're paying you and I'm getting all ahead of again it's good to get your foot in the door but don't do more than a couple jobs on tax broker because you are worth more okay I also found the application was not very well laid out it was not set up to help you show off your best self it was confusing the instructions weren't clear the website is super janky like I said so it's it was not a great application experience so overall I hate to say it it's probably the best if you want to get paid right away out of all five um that it's the worst out of all five in terms of user experience in terms of the kind of writing that you're going to do in terms of the pay potential so what I recommend doing if you're watching this video I recommend signing up to all five and I recommend giving each one of them the good old College try I mean post three articles on simile vocal and medium at least apply and see if you can get three jobs on scripted and text broker and really see which one works for you really see which one pays the best which one you enjoy the most which one has the highest earning potential for you in the long term you might find that text broker is good for just getting your confidence up and just getting a couple jobs and getting your foot in the door that way you can add some experience to your resume and then you move on or you might find I don't know how but you might find that you love text broker and you want to hang out there you want to live there good for you amazing um or with scripted or medium like me or vocal or any of the other platforms I've mentioned hopefully this video served as like a good place to start you understand what you need for each of them you can go ahead and get started with each one I really recommend doing a mix because that way you're not dependent on any one platform and you've got a good chance of finding something that works for you so these five writing platforms pay beginners I think they're all are they all great no they all have their merits I'll say that I would love to hear what you think of this video These platforms are there any other platforms you'd like me to review let me know in the comment box below and um as always if you liked this kind of video subscribe and if you want to see more let me know in the comments um if you hated it keep that to yourself because I'm very thin-skinned and I am easily hurt thank you so much for watching this video have a great rest of your week and I'll see you in the next one bye

Channel: Zulie Rane

Views: 288,491

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Id: 5jioCkBRRlw

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2023